An extremely rare solid number 888888 of Malaya $50 note is on ebay, start price as 0.99 pounds sterling. Item number is 190109619019.

With such a large denomination and with most sought after solid 888888, it is consider an extremely rare find. It would have cost many many thousand of dollar. By the way, the seller stated that all margins are trimmed off. Any comments ? I just bid and retract my bid.

Linky

I wouldn't bid on it due to the lack of margins. I think you made a good decision. That's too bad - that's a neat serial number

Granted the margins are missing, but at a good price I think it would be a nice addition to a collection as a place holder.

It seems like after I have retracted my bid a few minutes ago, a while later, the auction was prematurely ended.

wonder why the seller ended the auction early...

In the past when there were bid retractions you could see them and why, I guess this is another thing that eBay has taken away.

It is a note I would have bid only a nominal amount on with trimmed margins. I like sellers that leave the scanner lid open when they scan notes so you can see just what you need to, the margins of the notes to see tell tale folds, trimming etc.

so you get a better quality scan leaving the lid open on the scanner?

Earlier, I asked the seller to send me a large scan of the note. Here are the scans.

It shows the edges of the note better, the edges of the note show any telltale signs of margin trimming, or pressing, and sometimes even cleaning of the note. The paper is broken at the edges when it is cut, and any subsequent folds always show more on the reverse, because the folds break the paper and ink on the reverse since that is the direction the paper is usually folded. For that reason I avoid auctions with only a front image, or a white background in the image. Notice my banknotebank.com images all have the scanner lid open, and a resultant dark background which better shows the edges of the notes. I might be picky, but I like something to look right all the time to most people.

The numbers look legit, to me, too bad about the ####'ed trimming.

After the received the large scans of the note, I shot another question to the seller. I asked whether the note is a genuine note or a reproduction one.

In Singapore, sometimes in late 1990s, an organisation was doing some sort of event. The organization manage to get permission to produce reproduction notes from Straits Settlements and Malaya banknotes. These notes are mostly printed with serial number 888888. The reproduction piece were of high quality but the paper used were somewhat different from the currency paper. You can actually feel it. They feel like ordinary paper. In addition, there is a red word printed "Reproduction" at the lower center margin of every reproduction note.

After many years, they are still being sold in ebay and ebay singapore auction. In Singapore, collectors are aware of these reproduction banknotes. Here is an example taken from one of the auction to illustrate a reproduction note.

Well I guess that is why the margins were cut off

The next step of my examination is the number font used in the serial number in the auction item note. See below ( A/12 888888 ) . You can see that the number font used is Arial.




After going through some of the existing and available scan of similar Malaya $50 banknote, I found that the serial number font used is Roman Times. You can see the differences on digit 8 See below.



Here are some more samples taken from ebay and Ron Wise website that I have examined.







Other examples with different prefix. There are also possibilities that at different prefixes, they may use different number font. I did an examination on different available prefixes. The last one is a A/14. Still the final answer is they all uses Roman Times font and not Arial font. I also discovered that only the larger denomination such as the Malaya 1953 QEII $50 and $100 uses Roman Times font. ( From my collection ).





Only the $1, $5, $10 uses Arial font. All these samples are taken from my collection.








Another notable observation is that the reproduction notes uses Arial font for all the available denomination up to $10,000. This is a good indication of mismatch of font used as in the original $50 and $100.

I think it is a bit confusing. To make it simple, all reproduction notes for all denominations have Arial font serial number.

Original notes with $1, $5 and $10 denomination have Arial font serial number while original $50 and $100 notes have Roman Times font serial number.

Sometimes today, a Singapore fellow collector send me an important scan of a Malaya $50 note with a smiliar serial number A/12 888888. This was featured in a desktop calendar printed for year 2000. It was printed by a finance company, Singapore Finance. In fact there are many reproduction note with this serial number.

nice catch! it's a good thing you retracted & the seller withdrew the item. his note was obviously a reproduction fake, and the margins were trimmed to hide the red stamp.

Nice observation and thanks for showing your collection at the same time! Beauty notes

Frankly speaking, if such rare notes appear on ebay, I'll avoid it unless it's sold by a reputable dealer or by huge auction firms that use the ebay system from time to time.

Speaking of which, if such serial number exists, who owns it?

After reading the later part of this thread, do you think it is a good price to add this nice addition to a collection as a place holder.

In addition, the note was harshly treated, crushed, creased, crumbled, a single line of visible bad fold, edge trimmed to remove evidence, aged with rust stain, an unknown black dot, stepped and edge nicks. The only thing is that they did not use chemical to burn it.

My, they might as well of just wadded the bugger up and fired it from a cannon

Absolutely not. Knowing now what everybody has kindly explained, I feel you did the absolute right thing by withdrawing your bid.

There are good note sold in ebay. Last year, I was bidding for a Malaya 1953 $1 A/71 555555. I lost to a fellow Singapore collector. Later, I acquire the note from him. It is now in my collection. It was something that I did not go forward to win it during the auction. It is true that we are afraid to bid high for notes auction in ebay. We just do not know it's origin and the seller. Surpringly, this note is a genuine uncirculated solid. So far there is no uncirculated solid in collector's hands in Singapore and Malaysia. It comes from the other part of earth, Brazil which is quite unlikely. Probably a British citizen who once live in Singapore or Malaya collect solid number banknotes, He may have gone back to UK. His ancestors might have migrated to Brazil.

In the early colonial days in Malaya, locals do not collect solids. It is unlikely for them to keep such high denomination ( $50 ) solids. So far, non have surfaced or appear in auctions or with dealers. Such big denominations are not used by normal citizens. In 1966, most people would have change their Malaya $50 to the newly issued country's currency. There is a higher possibility of collecting solids for small denomiantion banknotes such as $1, $5 and $10.

Nice catch and great edcation for the rest of us! I have always admired your collection, the way you present it and share it with us makes me glad to be in the presence of such a great and friendly collector!

Great detective work See323!

A few years ago when I came back to revisit my hobby ( I might have mentioned this earlier ) , I heard from some friends that overseas collectors and money changers were cheated over these reproduction notes. A number of them thought that these are genuine banknotes. As they have not seen a genuine one, they do not know what to expect especially the paper quality. It is also possible that they may not notice the red word "reproduction". Some of these notes may have the red word removed. I felt that they should not produce these reproduction notes in the first place. It is open to fradulent acts.